


Within the Moments Lost

by ProfessorDrarry



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Curses, Established Relationship, HP: EWE, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 07:08:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8568991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorDrarry/pseuds/ProfessorDrarry
Summary: They are both suffering old wounds, these childhood veterans of a sort. Does that mean Harry is meant to love him less? Not possible. Memory-loss. Angst. Fluff. HP/DM, no epilogue in sight.





	1. A Problem

**Author's Note:**

> Today, we find our boys in a story already started. Such is life. These characters are not mine, but are the infinite beauty of JKR.

* * *

**A Problem**

* * *

 

Harry was having a really excellent dream. Well, there was nothing particularly good about it, actually. There was no happy fuzziness, no glowing goodness around the edges. It wasn't a sexy dream, it wasn't a dream where the outcome was clear, but he loved the feeling of what the dream was. He _loved_ this dream. 

There had been a zombie apocalypse; he knew how crazy that sounded. He'd never tell people that this was his favourite dream because he sounded like a lunatic.

The dream always started after the initial wave of zombie-ness. It was daytime, and he was with a bunch of people who had also survived, getting supplies. They were shopping in a random shop.  Picking out all the canned goods, taking sweets, laughing and having a grand old time.

It was his favourite despite it's weird overtone, the theme of which was the death of humanity, because he loved the feeling of abnormal normalcy. He loved that his first thought in an impending doom was the normal stuff, not the pain and the fear. Hermione thought he was crazy, and constantly tried to analyze the dreams.

And she was right. He probably needed to see a shrink.

The best part of the dream was just about to start. The part where they went back, safely of course, to their hideaway. The part where they stowed everything away in the ramshackle apartment and made supper on a camp stove. 

"Wake up."

Harry ignored the voice and kept walking, keeping vigilant as he moved forward through Wandsworth Common. Sometimes this is where the dream went sour, and they were attacked. He had to pay attention. He wasn't asleep, so he assumed someone else was being spoken to.

"I said WAKE UP! WAKE THE FUCK UP IMMEDIATELY, OR I WILL KILL YOU."

This time, the shouting in the corner of Harry's mind was accompanied with an annoying and slightly painful stinging hex. He decided perhaps he was the one who needed to wake up, and rolled his head out from underneath the pillow. He opened one eye in what he quickly discovered was blinding light.

"Draco, what on Earth-"

"Draco?! What…You will explain this all, immediately, _POTTER_. Or I will seriously reconsider my use of harmless hexes."

"Potter.…" Harry sat up suddenly, scrambled away from Draco, who was standing on the bed, wand pointed at his head. "Oh no. No no no. Shit. Why. We were doing so well. Draco, please lower your wand. And get down off the bed. I can explain."

"I seriously doubt that you can explain why I _woke_ up in _your_ bed. Why I, DRACO FUCKING MALFOY, seem to be _living here_. At least, so I gather from my belongings. And who, exactly, put this _ridiculous platinum ring_ on my finger."

Harry sighed inwardly. So, it was going to be that one, the one where he noticed everything.

"Draco. I need you to calm down. I'm going to reach over to the table drawer here, and hand you something. But first, why don't you _Accio_ my wand, so you feel more comfortable that I am not going to harm you. "

Draco nodded, and flicked his hand lightly, so that he was suddenly holding two wands. Harry kept both hands up as he slowly reached over and pulled out the heavy black binder.

"Okay. I'm going to say a couple of very confusing sentences, I am going to let you take this, and then I am going to leave. You will be fine. Just, stay calm. Please."

Draco nodded slightly again, barely a motion, his full on guard posture still in place, his chin tilted above his neck ever so slightly, his back arched. If he'd had fur, it would all be standing on end. Harry hated seeing him like this. It was never a good thing. For anyone.

"Draco Malfoy. WE are married. You DO live here. You are currently experiencing the effects of a _Tabula Rasa_ curse, which you received from a rogue Death Eater in the war, and which occasionally causes you to lose all memory from your adult life. It goes away. Your memories will come back. This binder has the information you need until that happens. I will...I'll just go now."

* * *

 

Harry Apparated away. He used his key to let himself into the back door of Ginny's flat. He flopped onto the couch restlessly, and tossed and turned for the better part of an hour. He wanted to believe he could get some sleep; he'd been having such a good dream.

Yet, when Gwen started to fuss an hour later, he walked upstairs, scooped her up, wrapped her in a blanket and sat in the rocker, breathing her in and dozing as she slept on.

It is how Ginny found them both, bursting in through the door a few minutes later.

"Oh, thank goodness, I didn't hear her…Oh." She seemed to realize what she was looking at. "Oh, Harry. Oh dear. Bad day?"

Harry just nodded.

"God, it's been ages. Like…"

"Six months," he muttered, as he turned and looked at her, sure that his weariness was apparent on his face.

"Six months, two weeks, three days, and seventeen hours. Gwen wasn't even here for the last one. I was stupid, thought maybe we were through it…that they were-" Harry choked on the sob he had been keeping in.

"Oh, Hare. Do you…what can I do?"

"I'm okay. Really. I'm fine. Can I just, you know, not move for a bit? She's asleep still."

Gwen shifted beneath her blanket, and Harry looked down at her as he started rocking again.

"Sure. Of course. You stay. It's fine. Nev is going to be downstairs, if you need him. I'm going…out."

"Gin, don't. It's not worth it. It'll pass."

"I'm going. What if he leaves again? You can't stop me. Nor are you going to try, and we both know it."

He looked at her. She held his eyes. It felt like ten minutes. Finally, Harry just sighed.

"Thanks, Ginny."

"I know."

* * *

Draco felt like he was going crazy. No, not _going_ crazy. Already there. He believed that, in fact, somewhere, in a dark, dank dungeon, his true physical body was rotting away. This was a flight of fancy from a broken and dead mind.

How else could he explain the binder? The one full of evidence of a life spent with Harry Potter. The wedding certificate, the stupid small trinkets that sentimentalists (like Draco) kept from the early days of a relationship, the photos of them, happy and intertwined through various small moments; the most stark one, the one Draco is staring at again now, shows a small vignette, oft repeating. An open-mouthed Potter, laughing in the sunlight, holding a butter beer and nearly spilling it, as Draco laughs along, placing a hand on his shoulder. It could be friends. It could be mates sharing a laugh over a pint. But it isn't, and Draco can see it, even without the background information. He looks at Potter with too much affection, and Potter leans imperceptibly into the touch on his shoulder. It is _not_ just mates.

He had torn the house apart, of course, looking for clues; of reality, or _Imperius_ , or incarceration, or maybe ghosts like the one Potter had actually been. For if it is real, than there is no way that either of them are there of their own accord. Not with the way he remembered the war ending. He had killed Dumbledore, after all. There was no civility possible between himself and Harry Potter.

He had taken the ring off. He placed it gently on the table and bored his eyes into it, watching the small letters on the inside of the band fade in and out of clarity.

_Even when you forget._

It was oddly disturbing. Not at all comforting. As he assumed, in the crazy-person-dream where this life was real, it had been indented to be.

He got up. He started pacing. He made tea (because, always tea. Even if the world is burning around you, his mother insisted, a sweet, strong tea will cure all ills).

Occasionally, he would pick up the letter, the one in messy, childish scrawl, and force the words to enter his brain again.

_Draco,_

_If you are reading this, it's what we call a 'bad day'. Bad days suck for all of us, but mostly for you. You tend to spend the whole day freaked right the fuck out. I urge you to calm down. You can decide whatever you want, about what is real, but please just don't leave. There was one time when you disappeared, and we didn't find you for twelve hours; you turned up the next day in Istanbul. I promise you, you don't need to flee to Turkey. This too shall pass._

_Whatever you have decided you believe today, there are three facts that are true, and sometimes they help:_

_1\. You really are Draco Malfoy. You are 31. You live in London. You work at St. Mungo's, with potions, or something._

_2\. You were hit with a curse in the war. The healers call it 'Tabula Rasa'. They don't know why, but sometimes, it makes you lose time, forget the past decade or so (sometimes more, sometimes less)._

_3\. You always, always come back._

_Don't worry. I will stay out of your way. Ask Ginny or Blaise if you need something. I tend to…make things worse._

_\- Harry Potter_

It confused Draco. If he was meant to be in love and married to the twit, why such a sterile, cold letter. Why the lack of sign off. Baffling.

Turkey.

His unhelpful, slowly unravelling mind kept arguing that Turkey was, in fact, an excellent idea. He should go to Istanbul. Sure, a small voice somewhere in his brain kept muttering that Harry had said not to go to Turkey. But what the hell was left of his world if his subconscious was both sounding like, and being dictated by, Harry Fucking Potter.

He packed a bag.

He sat back down on the couch and stared at the ring some more.

He cried. Which was ridiculous. He hadn't cried in…well, okay, he had no idea how long it had been since he had cried. But he definitely didn't do it often. It wasn't dignified.

He scrubbed at his face and tried to make up his mind.

Just as he was reaching a stage that he was sure was mania, a large crack signalled Apparition at the front door, and the creaking that followed, followed by a loud screech of the warded portrait told him someone was now inside. Still he didn't move.

"Draco? Please tell me you are here, you sod. If you have left for Turkey again, Harry'll have my head for not getting here sooner. So you better be here. 'Specially since I just stopped so I could bring you bagels. Carbs from Brick Lane always seem to help."

When Ginny reached the lounge, she was faced immediately with a crying Draco Malfoy, wand at the ready, left hand ridiculously balanced by his ear in the stupid defensive pose they had been taught in school, the one she had long ago convinced him to stop using.

As usual.

"Oh, knock it off." she said in exasperation. "I am Ginny. You may call me the Weaslette if it helps you, though that is a bit tired. I am in the letter as an aid to you because in this life you live, I am your friend. I was your friend before you were with Harry. I will, god help me, be your friend if you ever tire of Harry— though it will be more difficult then, since Ron swore he would cut out your heart if you ever did that. Wand down, eat the bagel. There's a good boy."

"Weasley, just what—" 

"Nope. Wand. Down. I will speak to you when you remember your well-taught manners, and offer me a cup of tea and muster up some plates for these."

Draco opened his mouth to speak again, but instead, he tucked his wand away and walked, almost against his will, into the kitchen.

When he returned, he had tea and plates, but Ginevra still hadn't moved.

"You…oh, God, D. You took your ring off."

"Yes? It was confusing me. I was just looking at it."

Ginny sighed a heartbroken sigh, "You never take your ring off. It's a point of contention. You won't even take it off when you play Quidditch, which drives Hare insane, since he thinks you'll lose a finger if your hand is ever injured. Today though. Hm. You took it off…you've never done that before. Must be a bad one."

"I have no idea whether or not it is," Draco's voice dripped with pain and frustration.

"I know, darling. I know you don't. Sit, we can talk."

Ginny sat, and Ginny talked. She answered all his questions, starting with what had happened in the time he was missing. He actually felt like he remembered pieces of the first part, starting work at the hospital, where Ginny had worked part time in reception when she wasn't travelling, trying to get noticed by the professional teams.

He remembered her trying to get to know him, even though no one else did since they assumed that his hours of civil service where the only reason he had been given the job. She had brought him biscuits, and left them surreptitiously on his desk, until, one day he had accidently thrown a chocolate digestive into a veritaserum batch. He had been angry, but Ginny had laughed so hard that it had become contagious.

They never went back to not speaking, and eventually, he counted her amongst his very limited selection of friends. She made him play pick-up Quidditch with her at the weekends. It had been hard the first three weeks. Then, all involved just resolved to make him pay by playing extra hard against him, and they ended up inviting him to the pub with them a month and half into his refusal to stop showing up.

Harry came later. Much later. Over teary drunken confessions. And a shared love of muggle jelly beans.

Or so Ginny explained.

He sat there listening in continued disbelief.

"Weasley. Stop," he finally said. She waited. "None of this is possible. You all can't have forgiven me. I…it was me."

"What was you, Draco?"

"I.… _I killed Dumbeldore_."

"Oh." Ginny's barely audible utterance was immediately accompanied by her hand to her mouth, the setting down of her tea cup, and the embracing of Draco, who until a second ago, had been across the room from her.

"Ginevra...stop. Please." Draco had gone completely stiff. "People don't, they don't-"

"Right. The touching thing. Sorry, I'd forgotten. It's been so long. Draco. Draco Malfoy. You. Did not. Kill. Dumbledore. You were supposed to, but…you didn't succeed. I'm not even a little bit sorry that is the truth, despite the fact that it most likely led to, well- this." She gestured across the room, over the binder, the ring, Draco himself.

"I didn't?"

"You didn't."

"Then who? Wait. Is he...?"

"No. Snape. It's…rather complicated. Not important, not now. Not today."

They sat for a moment in silence, which of course made it the perfect moment for Harry to Apparate into the room. He surveyed the scene in front of him, the black binder on the table, Draco and Ginny close together on the couch. He opened his mouth to say something, then noticed the last thing, and closed it again. He stood, and stared, looking between the table, Draco, and Ginny. Eventually, he took a large, deep breath.

"You took your ring off," he whispered.

No one spoke. No one moved.

He left the room. Draco buried his head in his hands, and didn't try and stop Ginny's soothing hand running across his shoulders, the murmured 'shh' that sounded very motherly and practised.

Five minutes later, Harry reappeared around the bottom of the stairs, rucksack slung over his shoulder.

"I'm going to stay at Ginny's. I left a note, so you'll know where I am if…"

He looked down once more at the ring on the table, sighed and scrubbed his face, then Apparated away. Draco absently wondered if the exception to the wards against on-site Apparition applied to him as well.

"Weasley. Ginevra. Thank you, but I need to…sleep. Or something."

"No Turkey?"

"No. I will…I'll tell you if I am going to leave. You seem to…need to know."

"Okay. Please come back soon. We miss you, when you are gone. We miss you."

"I feel I may know the feeling."

Alone in what he supposed was his bedroom, he pulled his jumper over his head and stared down at the bed. This wasn't the side he had woken up on this morning. But this was the side of the bed he always slept on. It was very disorienting. He wondered how common it was for both people in a relationship to want the same side. And he wondered at what point in their relationship he had lost that battle. How had he ended up being the one to give in? What had he received in return? He shuddered at the thought, and the ever increasing pressure on his temples increased once more. He walked around the bed and lay down on the other side. He was asleep almost the second he closed his eyes.

* * *

When he woke up, Draco instantly knew something was wrong. He was cold, and the bed felt weirdly empty. His mouth tasted coppery.

"Fuck. No no. Fuck, I thought...Damn it. It's been ages."

He rolled over to look at the nightstand, and found the note taped there immediately. There was also a tea cup, breaking the 'no dishes in the bedroom' rule. He figured it must be significant.

_D,_

_At Ginny's. Don't worry._

_-H_

Except, the H had been scribbled out, and Potter was scrawled beside it, in his barely legible, year seven-esque writing.

"Potter. Uh oh. Must have been a bad one. Still, at least I'm not in Tur-"

Draco looked down inside the tea cup and felt his heart shudder momentarily.

He felt his finger, realized how odd and unbalanced it felt. He fished the ring out and pushed it back onto his hand. He felt the weight settle there and immediately released tension and breath he hadn't been aware he had been holding.

"Fuck."

He Apparated out of the bedroom, and wondered at the feeling of awe he felt as he did it. It wasn't like he didn't rush to Apparate into work every day from this very spot, having wasted twenty extra minutes glaring at the outside world instead of getting up. Still, it felt thrilling today. He shook his head, standing now in Ginny's front hallway. It would never get better, the missing time. It would always feel like there was a broken bit of his soul he was chasing around for twelve hours.

He took the stairs two at a time, and found his way to the guest bedroom. He stood outside for a moment to breathe. He wasn't sure what awaited him. Harry hadn't stayed somewhere else for two years, ever since Draco admitted that it just made things worse, more disorienting, when he woke up. Usually, he just slept on the couch. He was worried now. It had been ages since the last…episode. What if the patience had finally disappeared.

What if Harry was finally done.

* * *

Harry awoke rather suddenly. Again. It would be great, he thought, if he could just wake up like a normal human being. He hated this feeling.

Although, this was a far better wake up to the last one; Draco straddling him was far better than Draco threatening to kill him.

"Hey."

"Hey. You're back."

"Ya."

"Good. Come sleep. I'm tired." Harry tried to pull Draco's hand, get him to lie down, closed his eyes again, and was perfectly satisfied with going straight back to sleep.

"But."

"What?" Harry eyed him with one eye.

"I took off my ring."

"You...no you didn't. _He_ did."

"Don't. You promised. Don't separate us. It's still me."

"Draco.…" Harry sat up, pushing Draco to the side.

"You promised you wouldn't do that anymore."

"Draco.…I have to. When you are him, when you…when you take your ring off. It's the only way I can…you don't ever take your ring off. We fight about it all the time. You are not him, I swear. He's the idiot from school. Yesterday, you thought you had killed Dumbledore. If I don't separate you from him, then it's you, doing those things. Going to Turkey. Erasing our history. Taking off…I won't linger on that, I swear, I'm making a bigger deal about it than it is. But I have to separate you, or it…it hurts more."

"Harry."

"It's fine. Really. It is. I'm, you know, used to it." Harry winced. This sounded bad, even to him. He waited for the backlash, but he just sat there, staring at the wall.

"It had been ages," Draco whispered finally. "Almost seven months, right? I thought maybe…"

"So did I, but whatever."

"It's not whatever, but whatever."

"Please, don't start a fight. It never helps, you know that."

"I left myself a note."

"What?"

"I left myself a note, on top of the binder. I brought it. Look."

Draco fished in his trouser pocket and pulled out the small scrap of heavy parchment, the type that Harry had used for the note inside the binder.

"Did you…"

"Ya, ya, you can re-write it later. Maybe work on your hand writing. Read it!"

 _You went to Turkey. You went to Turkey because of Klashley. Father knows him. You can fix this._ _Remember this._

"Okay, so?"

"So Harry James Potter. I remembered, yesterday, going to Turkey. I don't know why, but I remembered and I reminded myself. And this is why!"

"Okay, okay, so...Who's Klashley?"

"Look at the back."

_Klashley= memory researcher. Specializes in memory spells and curses. Remember._

"Draco, we've seen so many people…"

"I know. I know, Hare, but. One more. Please?"

Harry looked back at Draco's pleading face and smiled. And laughed.

"Well, obviously, idiot. As many as you want. Now please, let me sleep."

Harry refused to get excited. He refused to feel an ounce, an iota, a smidge of hope. For five years, he had tromped around with Draco to this 'incredible healer' and that 'foremost researcher' and those 'new age theorists". For the past two, he had dealt with Draco's despondence, the giving up, the bargaining into getting Harry to leave instead.

But that wasn't going to happen.

He would keep going, he could do whatever it was Draco needed him to do, because he had married him knowing about the episodes. He had walked into this fully aware of what it would be like. And regardless of whether this new doctor changed Draco, it changed nothing else. The episodes were like any particularly annoying habit. Like drinking from the milk carton. Or overbearing in-laws. Irritating, inconvenient, but not life altering.

He was in it for the long haul.


	2. A Solution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A conclusion in two parts. Characters still not mine. Still JKRs.
> 
> Klashley is based (extremely loosely) on Karl Lashley, real-life memory researcher. In honour of his research, let's find a solution for our boy here. After all, hope is not lost because of damage done. As Lashley himself discovered:
> 
> "Nevertheless, in spite of such evidence against it, learning does sometimes occur."
> 
> And here you thought Neuropsych wasn't romantic, hm?

**A Solution**

Draco had always loved Istanbul. It's violently colourful markets, it's vast sweeping arches, the Christian and Islamic histories crashing together, the beauty of the bridge and the sweeping strait. He loved it for being in two places at once. He loved it's vibrancy and it's brightness, so different from England, like stepping into a different world. Here, people embraced in the streets, held festivals for light and dancing. Sure, it wasn't the safest place these days, and Turkey had never really been a great place to be gay. He and Harry had never been here together, but he knew they could be discrete, knew they could appear friend-like in places where it was necessary; increasingly fewer places, if his friends were to be believed.

It had been almost a decade since he'd been here himself. Well, outside of his little adventure two years ago. That time, he now remembered thanks to Harry; there had been a very ill-conceived plan afoot, unsurprisingly poorly planned considering the third-rate researcher they had desperately contacted. He had a new form of immersion therapy, where Draco tried to remember the curse that had been cast on him while under hypnosis. It was followed by immersion therapy, trying to recreate the scene, to force the curse from his mind. Instead of a cure, it had led to an increase in episodes, three a week for a month. Harry had moved in with Hermione for two weeks. It had been easier than enduring hexes, and once, a _Cruciatus_. Draco still cringed if it ever came up. It made him angry and hurt him to his core that he couldn't remember. That Other Draco couldn't realize that the man he loved could never warrant the pain of another Unforgivable. He wasn't sure how they had made it through that one, considering their past, but Harry had thrown his typical shrug and gone straight back to their lives.

When he woke up in Turkey the last time, with his memories once again intact, he had decided he'd had enough. He decided to stop with the doctors, stop with the healers. He figured he should just spend a bit of time being alive, loving Harry. Because, he was going to convince him to leave. To divorce him and move on. It had to happen. He couldn't handle the pain in his eyes every morning when he came back, the sighs at his apologies, the 'hush Draco, it's fine' when it really wasn't.

Isn't still.

He was convinced he could manage to leave, if he found Klashley. If he convinced Klashley to remove Harry's memories of Draco, as was his plan, he could walk out of Harry's life and save him from the pain of living the rest of his life like this. Draco _deserved_ that pain. Harry did not. It was going to be easy, really. Especially since Harry, trusting as he was, had not questioned what research this new doctor conducted, didn't know that Klashley specialized not on returning memories, but on erasing them.

He remained bright and happy the entire trip. He enjoyed their last bit of time together, never giving anything away. They planned for a week, taking time off work, adding sightseeing to their itinerary. Harry had never seen Istanbul, and he didn't want to make him miss out. He made an appointment with Klashley for their fourth day, but also managed to convince Harry to spend the day seeing the mosques he wanted to visit instead of joining him.

"I've seen enough mosques to last a lifetime. My father dragged us all around when I was here last. They are beautiful and peaceful, but I just don't think I have the right memories connected to them to enjoy it. Besides, why would I make you sit in a dingy office with me, to hear the same things I always hear. Go. I will meet you for lunch, just as we planned."

"Draco, what if he needs information on what the other you is like, what I remember when you are gone, stuff like that?"

"I have my file. The one in which my anal-retentive partner keeps diligent notes; the one that details _every_ episode from the past decade. "

"I'm not normally like that, just...with this."

"So defensive. Harry. Just _go_. It'll be fine. Promise. "

He sat now, alone, in a medical office that looked like all medical offices. Pale green paint on antiseptic walls, calmingly neutral abstract art prints, and outdated magazines sitting on low tables, some in Turkish, some in Kurdish, even a few in Arabic for good measure. He didn't read, though it would be great for his Turkish. He was too jittery. He sat with his hands worrying the edge of the file folder in his lap. He wouldn't need it, but he brought it anyway.

"Master Malfoy. It has been a long time. You look very like your father."

"Professor Klashley. It's been...decades. How many occasions in life do you have to say that? I'm...well, _I'm_ Mr. Malfoy now, I suppose."

"Forgive me. Of course you are. I'm getting quite old, dear boy. It is hard to remember that things change. Do come in, I'm very intrigued by your...predicament."

Sitting comfortably in a predictably old fashioned chair, Hurwitz Klashley regarded him from across the desk.

"I must say, Draco, I was surprised when you contacted me. From your file, I'm not sure how I can help you. My speciality isn't exactly _repairing_ damage. It seems that you would be better seeking out a curse breaker-"

"Doctor...trust me, I have seen _every_ curse breaker. That isn't why I am here. I need a favour. One that is…morally questionable. You are the best, and I take it that my father would have recommended no one else. Though, I confess I did not ask him."

"From what I hear, there is little that makes sense to your father these days, little you can ask him."

"From what _I_ hear, you have more than a little to do with that."

"Azkaban is an…unpleasant place. Your father and I had a deal that-"

"Please. I don't require details. It's just, that's why I came. I know you can do what I need you to, and that you will do it simply because, _bonded confidit in perpetuum_."

"Mr. Malfoy, that bond was made a long time ago-"

"I believe that is the distinct meaning of _perpetuum._ "

"Very well. What is it you request? How do you know I would not have done it without threats?"

"Because. I need you to erase me from the memory of my partner. All his memories of me, leaving everything else intact. You are one of the few wizards in the world capable of that."

"Your partner."

"Yes."

"That partner being your husband, Harry Potter, saviour of the wizarding world? And how, Mr. Malfoy, do you purpose that I erase your relationship from the minds of the entirety of wizarding England?"

"So you understand my predicament."

"Clearly."

"If I didn't have this issue, I would just _Obliviate_ him myself."

"I see. Well, okay…"

"To be clear, I don't care if his friends or whatever remember us. I just…need him to leave me, and not try and stay in my life."

"I sense classic Malfoy nobility. It is odd that that trait is not more widely recognized. People focus on the self-preservation, but…nobility runs strong."

"Only for those we hold closest. So you know I would not ask if-"

"If you were not desperate. Alright, Draco. I will see what I can do."

When he left the office two hours later, his heart ached and his head was pounding, but the small vial he held clutched in his fist made him feel hopeful for the first time in two years.

-OoOooOoOooOoO-

Harry had to concede that perhaps Draco had been right. Six mosques in one day was too many mosques. They were beautiful, to be sure. Two had even made him tear up, sheer beauty and magnitude, which was unusual and a bit confusing. But by the fourth or fifth, his feet hurt, he was too hot, and he really needed a drink. He skipped the seventh mosque on his list and went to the restaurant where he was meeting Draco. He sat at a table on the patio, poured through his guide book, and managed to order a pint of cider without embarrassing himself too much. He was content, although he wasn't sure why. Nothing about this trip was meant to be peaceful.

When he finally saw a blond head- his blond head- bobbing through the street, looking not at all pleased, he felt the pit of his stomach fall out again. He wasn't sure if it was dread and foreboding, or overwhelming appreciation that this man was once again walking back _to him._ The crushing feeling that he was lucky, that he was loved, hadn't faded in eight years. It probably should have. It was ridiculous to feel like a teenager in love after a nearly 10 year relationship, and he knew that he didn't love Draco the same way that he had at the start; the desperation had faded significantly, and he felt less like he had to justify every action to the other man. Still, there was the whole problem of occasionally being completely forgotten by the one person he could _never_ forget, not now, and it made him appreciate it every time Draco _chose him_.

Draco sat down in an uncharacteristically heavy way, sighing and blowing his hair out of his face.

"So...how did it go?" Harry looked down at the dregs in his glass instead of meeting Draco's gaze.

"Whatever."

"Draco, don't do that thing. Don't shut me out and claim that it's fine. Stop. I don't deserve that."

"It went...fine, I guess. Harry, this man, this doctor…well, he owed my father a blood debt."

"'Pure-blood crap' translation please?"

"He owed my father a debt, and it was, like, transferable, to any of his kin. He's only helping me because I called it in. I feel like I coerced him. The whole thing is making me feel very…Lucius…-y."

"Not a word. Is this guy, you know, _dark._ " Harry used a ridiculous Transylvanian-style accent when he said it, but the he _was_ slightly concerned. He hadn't wanted to ask before, since he knew it would just make everything harder, but a contact of Lucius' could really go either way.

"No. He never…you know, took oaths. He's not a Death Eater He's just, well, a _pureblood_ pureblood. Okay, and he may also not be ethically wonderful."

"Well, but if he isn't evil or whatever, maybe you should just…be Lucius-y. No, hear me out. If we take all the shitty parts of your father away, we are left with what? Resourcefulness. He never let anything go without exhausting every option. That's all you're doing, really. You found another option, you are exhausting it."

Draco looked up, caught Harry's eye, then looked away and sighed. He reached across the table and held Harry's hand.

"What? What did I say?"

"Exactly what I needed to hear. As usual. HP, can I ask you a very ridiculous question, one you have to answer without asking follow up questions or asking me why?"

"Mysterious. Go?"

"What will you fall back on if something ever happens to me?"

"What? What do you mean-"

"No. Follow. Ups."

"Hm. Okay…let me see…well, I have work, I guess. And the Quidditch team. And my school friends. Is that enough? It feels like enough?"

"I guess so. But, what will you care about."

"I dunno. This is morbid. Maybe I'll take up gardening."

"Oh Merlin, please promise me you won't."

"Luckily, I feel secure in promising that, since you are going nowhere and I will therefore have to just go on having most of my free time spend worrying pointlessly over you, you perfectly _healthy_ , if slightly crazy, human being."

"Well, ya, but…I think you'd work it out, right? Something else to worry about?"

"I have never had trouble finding things to worry about, no."

"Okay…Okay."

"You are being seriously weird. So, he's helping."

"He's helping."

"Well, good. Now I can bore you with my endlessly fascinating thoughts on the mosques I saw today."

Draco groaned, signalled the waiter, and ordered in Kurdish.

"We are going to need more beer."

-OoOooOoOooOoO-

Draco tried to stay present, tried to not feel distracted, as he walked around the next three days of Turkey with a vial in his pocket. Klashley had presented him with it as he left the office that first day, rather unceremoniously, and without explanation.

"Just like that," he had said. "Do I need to come back?"

"No, Mr. Malfoy. This is my specialty. What you ask for, it is…relatively easy, potion wise. I would just recommend that you are sure before you follow through. Prepare the others in your life, if it is what you actually decide. It is hard on the people it leaves behind, not the person it takes."

Draco had simply nodded at the time, as though he understood. But he didn't. He was confused, and alone, frustrated and scared. And the person who he usually conveyed these emotions to, the person who always knew how to fix this mood, couldn't know a thing about it.

So instead, Draco was trying to just enjoy _Harry_. He smiled and laughed at things he didn't usually find funny, he stayed as close as decorum would allow, he stored up a lifetime of looks and quirks (like when Harry paused exactly halfway through whatever he was eating and sighed contentedly), he even _smelt him_ every once in a while, for Merlin's sake. It was incredibly distracting, and incredibly painful. Draco was at the end of his happy relationship, and he was the only one who knew.

When they got home, London seemed extra bleak, extra grey. Draco had always been ambivalent about living in the city. He hadn't grown up here, and there were moments when he absolutely loved it. He liked the river, and the abundance of things to do, even the tube was something he had come to appreciate, at least abstractly. Lately, however, it seemed that there were far more instances where he absolutely hated it. It was too busy, for starters. There were people _everywhere,_ all the time, and it seemed like most of them were tourists, going the wrong way on walkways, getting lost and stopping in the middle of the road, getting their iPads in his face. It rained more days than he was willing to admit, a valid stereotype which was a topic of endless hilarity to his non-London friends. He missed the North, he missed Scotland; he missed the places he knew and loved that were not here. So yes, at times, he hated London.

The second they walked into the entranceway of their house, however, he remembered why they lived here. He remembered why he put up with the crappy days, the rain. He remembered because Harry reached up towards the ceiling, stretched like a monkey, hanging off the door frame.  When Harry reached out and literally stroked a wall. When he looked all around, grinned like a Cheshire, then wandered into the sitting room and collapsed onto the nearest available sofa with a sigh.

"Hiya, House. We missed you."

"Stop being a knob."

"Oh ignore him, House, he missed you too. Your drafty windows and your creaky cupboard doors. Draco, come. Sit. Say hello. Relax. The house missed you. The sofa _missed_ you."

Harry patted the seat beside him and curled his feet up to make room. Draco laughed and sat down.

"See? It's saying, 'ah, yes, hello Draco's bum. Welcome home.' Can you hear it?"

"I can hear you, being ridiculous and more than a little unbalanced."

"I love travelling, I really do, but isn't it wonderful, the coming home part?"

"Mhmm. Harry?"

"Yes?"

"You know I love you right?"

"You do realize you have said to that to me more this week than in eight years of marriage, right? I seriously don't need it. It's fine. I really didn't mind going to Turkey, Draco. I didn't mind another doctor. I love you too, but stop being an insecure bugger. Okay? It's disturbing me."

"Yes, but-"

"Yes, D. I know you love me," Harry smirked at Draco and put his socked foot up on his head.

"Gross. Stop. Moron."

-OoOooOoOooOoO-

On Thursday, Draco woke up knowing it was time.

He got up, and went straight into work. Then straight into Granger's office.

"It's today."

"Draco.…I thought you were going to think about this."

"I _have_ thought about this, Hermione. Ad nauseam. It's today."

"Well, I wish you would reconsider. It's a terrible idea, and one that I am not impressed I need to be a part of."

"Yet, you will, because you love Harry as much as anyone. Did you talk to Ginevra?"

"Yes. She won't let me. It's fine though. She's agreed to go along with the plan. She's not exactly impressed, either, but she can trusted."

"And your husband?"

"I don't…you know what he's like, it'll just be easier if I do it. I will tonight. Draco, you owe me. I haven't Obliviated anyone since-"

"I know, Hermione. Harry told me. I owe you, and all of you, my soul. But I am doing it for a reason. For the right reason. For the only reason."

"There has to be another way. If you could just-"

" _Hermione."_

"Okay. Okay, I'll stop. When?"

"Tonight, I think."

"I...Draco, we are going to miss you."

Draco looked away. Tears again. He was tired of crying. He wondered if the other him cried as often as he did, when he went missing. Did the Draco who knew nothing of his adult life cry? His father would be mortified, at least , he would be if he even knew his own name, let alone that Draco's tear ducts were embarrassingly active.

"I think I shall miss you too. Which is a very strange reality, don't you think?"

"Not so strange, at the heart of it. Do you know where you are going to go?"

"It's better if…"

"Okay. Well, no, it's really not, and I wish that we didn't just spend so much time saying 'it's okay' when it isn't. You're our family."

"I know. And I don't deserve you."

"You do, Draco. Despite what you think, Malfoy, you deserve family. Happiness. Harry. You do. And you always will. If you ever change your mind….well, just come home, we will fix it."

Draco has no words for this, so he nods, and leaves. In the corridor, though, he turns back around immediately, walks straight up to Hermione's desk, and hugs her tight. When she hugs him back, she is crying too. It is a very strange world, he thinks to himself, where I am hugging, and _loving_ , and already missing Hermione Granger.

Though perhaps, she is right. Not so strange. After all, his world has become quite full of Gryffindors. The sort who had stuck around when no one else in his life had. The sort who didn't care that he was gay and unwilling to marry for blood line alone. The sort that forgave him long before he had started to forgive himself.

Still. We mustn't dwell, his mother's voice told him. It isn't about you. It is about Harry.

And so, that night when Harry waltzed into the kitchen, predictably at half six, he hands him a glass of wine like nothing is wrong. He makes them both dinner, and clears up too, which causes Harry no suspicion since he still believes Draco is being impossibly sheepish about Turkey. Since he is, even if it's not for the reason Harry believes, he says nothing.

When they settle into the sitting room, and Harry, as usual, falls asleep on the sofa, Draco extracts himself. Gathers the hidden, shrunken luggage from the kitchen cupboard under the sink, and steps out into the rainy night. Of course it is raining. As he Apparated, he allowed just a small amount of the pain to seep in, but carried on with the leaving.

In the end, it is the only way, and he knows it.

* * *

** Side-note, because I am a nerd of the variety who studies these sorts of things, and the type who wants to believe others will care: Karl Lashley was an American memory neuropsychologist, who notably realized that memory didn't localize in one area of the brain; that means if a part of the brain is damaged, we can relearn some things. We relearn using other areas. This is excessively reductive of what he actually studied, of course, but that's what really mattered… Remember that.

He also harmed a great many rats in his experiments, which I find difficult and slightly distasteful, but, as a result, we now know how to help a baby with epilepsy by doing a hemispherectomy, or how to rehabilitate stroke patients so they can walk and speak again. All things with purpose. Okay, I will stop dissertating now…**


	3. A Conclusion

Harry woke up on the couch again and felt like something was impossibly wrong. Perhaps, though, it was just that the crick in his neck that felt so deep and so permanent. Or perhaps it was that the foggy centre of his brain felt like he was forgetting something very important. And, Merlin, did his head hurt.

He owled into work and showered before tunnelling onto bed and going back to sleep. He hoped that he would feel better in a couple of hours.

Instead, he woke up to the sound of shuffling in the kitchen, and his headache had doubled.

"Hello? Oh, Mione. Hi."

"Are you okay? You weren't at work."

"Not feeling well. What are you doing?"

"I was just clearing up. I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay, you didn't. Hey, can I ask you...is there…what am I forgetting? I have that feeling that there is something really important that I am missing, and I'm not sure what it is?"

"Um, I don't know. I don't think it's anything I know about. Do you need anything? Can I bring you something?"

"No, it's okay. It's just a migraine. Well, and the overwhelming feeling that I am forgetting something. Merlin, I hate that. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that Ginny is mad at me."

"Ginny.…Harry, what do you mean?"

"We had a fight. She broke up with me. I'm going to have to go grovel, I think."

"Hare. Oh….fucking hell. This is awful. Harry sit down."

"Why? What's wrong?"

Hermione sat at the table and waited for him to sit too. She looked so serious that he did.

"Harry, you and Ginny _did_ have a huge fight. Twelve years ago. You told her you weren't sure you were actually attracted to her, that you were actually pretty sure you were gay. She was very angry. At the time, it sucked. But we all laugh about it now."

"Twelve.…Twelve years?! What do you mean? I thought...it feels like it was yesterday."

"I don't know what's happening. Did you get hurt? At work or something?"

"Hermione. Tell me what's going on. I know you. You won't look me in the eye. What the hell is going on?"

"Nothing. It's nothing. You…this happens sometimes. To you. You forget things. It's fine. You are okay."

"Hermione-"

"Harry, I'll send Ginny. She can help."

Three hours later, he had talked to Ginny and Ron, and he felt significantly worse. He didn't have any idea what was going on with him, but he definitely wasn't well. He was reminded they all knew he was gay, that Ginny was married to Neville, that he was their daughter's godfather- and actually, he sort of remembered Gwen, at least the way she smelled. He had held her the whole time he talked to Ginny, and she made him feel better for a short time.

There was something wrong with his house too. He remembered it, mostly, but there were weird anomalies that he couldn't account for. For one, it felt odd that there was art on his walls. He didn't know why, since at some point he must have bought it. But it felt weird. He didn't care about art. Especially not this art, highbrow and intellectual. Requiring actual thought to comprehend it.

And his drawers; nothing was where he intuitively searched for it the first time. The spoons were in a weird spot. The parchment he had looked for was not in the junk drawer as he had thought, but was in a folder full of nice parchment, a thing he hadn't owned even when he was a student who carried around tons of parchment. It was always shoved into his trunk in the same haphazard rolls it originally came in. Never flat and neat and ready for writing. It was…unsettling.

He had to get out of the house. He dragged on his coat and pulled out a rarely used umbrella, and went outside into the downpour. He walked into the park, which was crazy since it was absolutely bucketing. He didn't really mind the rain, but something about the park was making him very uncomfortable.

He sat down on the bench closest to the stream and felt ridiculous as he started to cry. He didn't cry. It wasn't a thing he did. He just couldn't sort out why this bench felt so important, why staring at the disturbed surface of the water felt tragic, why he wanted to scream and run, why he felt like he should probably leave London, go somewhere far away.

Turkey perhaps.

Which was a weird thought. He had never been to Turkey. He'd never felt any real draw to travel at all. And yet, he kept thinking, _yes, I should go to Turkey._

Instead, he went home. He stewed for three days. He ignored the weird dreams he kept having. Finally, when he woke up on the fourth day, he couldn't take it anymore.

He went straight to Mungo's and found Healer Leger.

"Harry. I'd say it's lovely to see you, but I rarely get to do that when I'm working, so instead, why don't you tell me what's wrong. I haven't seen you in ages."

"Something is wrong. With my head. I'm having weird…memories. Dreams."

"Hm. Have you had any…trauma, or anything? Have a seat, I'll do an exam."

Harry sat, and waited while a wave of spells washed over him, increasing the unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Mr. Potter, did you have anything happen to you at work? An encounter with a suspect or someone suspicious?"

"No, I haven't been on field work in months. Dead boring, really."

"Huh. Have you had any reason to…take a potion? For anything?"

"No, nothing beyond a headache tonic. Why?"

"Well, there are…traces. Of a very strong potion. I'm not sure what for, but it looks an awful lot like some sort of blocker."

"Blocker? What is that?"

"Sorry. Shop talk. It looks like an inhibitory potion; the ingredient traces I can see are usually only used to try and inhibit something- emotions, pain, you know. But these ones….I don't know. What did you say was wrong specifically?"

"It sounds ridiculous, but somehow, all week, I've felt like I am forgetting something. Something very important."

"I see. And what does Draco say?"

"Draco? What do you mean? Draco who…Draco Malfoy? Why would I ask him? He's just a bloke who works at the ministry. I pass him in the corridors, I guess, but wouldn't exactly call us acquaintances anymore. Why, does he have something to do with this?"

Harry's eyes narrowed in well-rehearsed suspicion. The healer looked at him for a moment, cancelled all her detection spells, and sighed.

"Ah, well, I see. Okay, well Mr. Potter, I don't think anything is actually wrong. I think you probably just took a bad dose of headache tonic before all this started. I recommend rest. I could admit you? Give you some calming draught, keep you for the night? Just to be safe, of course."

"You know what, Healer Leger? I'm going to shock you. I think…that may actually be a good idea. I'm…just, something is not right."

"Okay. Fair enough. I will go get the paperwork in order. Should I contact anyone?"

"Dunno. Maybe…Hermione Granger? She will likely worry."

"Okay. I will. You just…sit tight."

-OoOooOoOooOoO-

Healer Leger had been a healer for a long time. She had treated a great many Auror over the years, had seen her fair share of dark magic and nasty spells, weird potions and troublesome concoctions. She knew right away that she was dealing with a memory altering potion of some kind, and that it was definitely not a registered potion of any sort. Which meant that not only was she now worried, but she was incredibly angry.

"Mrs. Granger-Weasley? May I come through?"

"Oh! Healer Leger. Of course!"

She stepped through the fire and stared steadily at the middle of the desk where Granger sat.

"I haven't seen you in years, Helen. To what do I owe the pleasure? You know, no one actually calls me Granger-Weasley. It's only hyphenated for legality."

"Not really my concern, at the moment, Madame."

"What's wrong...is it Harry?"

"I have a feeling that you know very well that it _is_ Harry. In fact, I have a very distinct feeling that you know exactly why Mr. Potter is in my hospital, why he feels so unsettled that he _agreed_ to treatment, and why, exactly, he doesn't seem to recall his husband, Draco Malfoy."

Hermione looked at the floor, couldn't quite meet her eyes, and muttered, "It's a long story."

"Well, luckily, I have time."

By the end of the entire story, Helen Leger was twisted and turned, and had no idea whose side she was on.

"That man is a fool."

"Sure. Of course he is. But he is also impossible to talk to."

"The potion traces…they are definitely Dark Arts."

"That does not surprise me. The doctor he went to…he was a connection from his father."

"Do you know where he is?"

"What do you think?"

"Well, I have to try and fix it. I have a duty of care. Harry came to me on his own."

"You can't. You can't do that."

"I can. And I am going to. And if you try to stop me, I will have you arrested, as an accomplice to attack using Dark Arts. Which would be annoying, since then I will have to find and arrest Draco too, which I don't want to do. Frankly, I'm not even sure I can fix this. Memory is…complicated. And I don't know what damage has been done."

"Well, I can tell you that. A devastation has been done. A catastrophic loss has occurred. And I am really sick of being the only one who knows. So you know what, Helen. Go ahead. Please try and fix him. Maybe if he remembers Draco on his own, and goes back to him on his own, that idiotic-blond-headed-absolute-moron will see reason and come home. You just…you can't tell him, about Draco."

"Mrs. Granger. Please. I am a first-class healer, by any standards. I am well aware of the fact that telling a memory patient about lost memories, especially those of an emotional nature, is inadvisable at first. Be prepared, however, for him remembering on his own, at least vaguely, and being very, _very_ unimpressed with _you._ He has always been quite an extraordinary person, with a strong mind, even if he doesn't always use it effectively. There is no doubt that we can find a way to...rewire some things. I hope you are ready for the fall out."

-OoOooOoOooOoO-

Draco moved around for two solid weeks, jumping in a zigzag pattern, never staying in one place for more than one night. It ironically made him think of the cautiously given tales of the year Harry spent away from school, and therefore made him significantly sicker. He cried and drank, and then drunkenly cried. And he was miserable. Harry never cried. Harry would have found a way to make him laugh it all off. He would have been infuriatingly positive and upbeat, and confounded by Draco's terrible mood.

Draco just drank.

And when he finally stopped moving around, he did not attempt to meet anyone, he did not attempt to learn anything new or find work. In fact, he wore a glamour everywhere he went, and spoke as little as possible. Which was relatively easy since he had very limited language skills here anyway. When Hermione had asked, he hadn't really formulated the thought of going back to Istanbul, back to the vicinity of Klashley, who had agreed to attempt to fix the _Tabula Rasa_ anyway, but it seemed like a good fit. He knew he liked it, and yet it bore so little connection to his life that he was afforded a fresh start. Plus, it made him feel better that his father had forced him to learn rudimentary Turkish, along with the six other languages he spoke. It made him resent it slightly less, the hours of forced tutoring from the ugly man who endlessly said, "O _sch_ , Master Draco, _OSSCH._ Not Ock."

Besides, he had always loved Turkey.

Draco didn't know that, while he adjusted, Harry was spending the month with Healer Leger. She kept giving him increasingly abstract potions, then making him play ridiculous association games. The whole thing was making him feel like a rat in a maze; rewarded for stupid, small achievements, like remembering where he first lived after becoming an auror (a dark, dank flat in the East End), or knowing when he had come out to the Weasley's (and that George had immediately set him up with his friend Christian. It had not ended well.)

It seemed pitiful to him, since he still felt like he was missing something very significant; it was like he could _almost_ remember what it was, in the darkest reaches of his mind, unable to touch the light. Significant though it felt, his friends seemed to have no idea what it was. They had all agreed to be analyzed as well, in case they had been given something too, but Healer Leger professed them all clean and whole. Hermione insisted on checking his mail through the MLE before he received it, in case he was attacked again, which was reasonable, except that he now didn't seem to be getting the papers. Hermione simply shrugged and said that maybe it had been suspicious. There wasn't much else in said mail, but maybe that was good. Maybe, he kept thinking, there wasn't anything that major. Maybe his life was really the pathetic collaboration that it seemed to be.

Except for the dreams. The vivid, ludicrous dreams where his life had significant moments, almost seeming like memories of big events he otherwise couldn't recall; a wedding he seemed to be a big part of, the closing on the house where he now lived, intense and experimental sex, holidays to places he only vaguely remembered having seen. Plus, in all the dreams, there was a figure, shrouded in darkness, a fuzzy embodiment of a person, bits of whom would fall into perfect clarity while he was asleep, only to be out of grasp as a whole when he awoke. Long feet with slightly fuzzy toes. Some sort of tattoo on an arm. Hips that jutted into him as he slept. Soft, feathery hair.

It was all extremely frustrating. Yet, he kept doing the experiments. He kept working. Because if he didn't figure out what he was forgetting, he was pretty sure he was going to go really and properly insane.

-OoOooOoOooOoO-

Meanwhile, Draco did work of his own. Klashley was trying to reverse engineer the curse that had destroyed most of his adult life. The process had not been easy. Klashley's ethics left something to be desired. He seemed undisturbed by negative results, had clearly not tested any of the methods he was using. Draco spent the better part of a week unable to sit up without vomiting, and another blind in one eye. Still, Klashley seemed encouraged, and it was true that he had not had another episode since he had begun working with him.

One Wednesday, sitting in the waiting room again, he heard a gleeful yawp before Klashley tore open the door of his office.

"Draco, my boy! I think I have it worked out! I was looking at it all wrong! I needed to look at the Latin! _Tabula Rasa_ \- a blank slate, yes, but not a _broken_ slate. I have an idea! Come in, come in."

He had been unceremoniously ushered into his now regular seat as Klashley rushed around him, preparing some sort of mixture in the caldron in the corner.

"Now, listen, Malfoy. You are not going to like this, but please hear me out. I have to _intentionally_ put you into an episode, take your memories on purpose. I think I can by simply sending your body into autonomic shock; oh don't look so alarmed, it's less dangerous than it sounds. It's like giving you a bad scare. You'll be fine."

"And then what? How will that help? We've tried treating it while I was in an episode. Nothing has worked."

"Yes, because they were trying to fix something that was broken. You are not broken when you are gone, you are simply _new._ Your file from your man here, it was the ticket. You calm down when you are given the binder, he says, but it's passive. The binder is a passive reminder of the life you have lived. We need to make it so that you remember your memories as if they are happening to you _now,_ albeit on a truncated timeline."

"Let's just pretend you are making sense right now. Throwing out how impossible that sounds, how exactly do you plan on making me experience a decade of life as though it is happening."

"That, my boy, is the genius. It is what will put me into the history books. To break the curse, I will use the counter curse."

"There is no counter curse. That is why I am here."

"There _wasn't_ a counter curse. I have invented one. It will work, because at the same time, you will be seeing your memories unfold. I will give you a mild sedative, and then feed them back to you."

"How are you going to-Oh. Oh my god. Holy shit. You may actually be a genius."

"I know it."

"A Pensieve. You want to use a Pensieve."

"Yes. We will extract the key memories, we will place them here, then induce your episode. Then we give them back to you while I reverse the curse work with the spell I've been working on. I can't promise it will work the first time, but-"

"But it's a start. A hope. I haven't had hope in…years."

"I told you my boy. The history books."

Draco actually laughed. He smiled. He hadn't done that in a while, and it made his face hurt.

-OoOooOoOooOoO-

Hermione almost threw up when she got the owl that she had seriously been hoping she would never receive.

_Please come. NOW._ _He seems to remember._

_\- Leger_

She dashed off a letter to Ginny, then flooed directly to St. Mungo's.

"Oh thank god. He's locked me out. He keeps shouting, and I think he's throwing things."

"I'm surprised he didn't leave."

"He refused to leave until you got here."

"Oh dear."

"Indeed."

Hermione opened the door immediately, knowing exactly which locking spell Harry favoured.

"Please, just hear me out-"

"YOU FUCKING KNEW. I KNOW YOU KNEW. HAVE YOU KNOWN THE ENTIRE TIME?"

"Yes. I helped. He made me promise. Harry-"

"I can NOT believe you would help him _ERASE me. Did you not learn your lesson about erasing people?_ "

Hermione's voice died in her throat.

"Does anyone else know? Ginny? Ron? Who was in on it? Just you- well, and Leger, obviously."

"I...had to Obliviate Ron. Ginny knows. We've been taking your papers, just in case. Leger knew, but she was only trying to help. She's not to blame."

Hermione sat down on the floor and dropped her head to her hands.

"What do you remember?"

Harry stopped pacing and visibly collapsed. He came and sat next to her, rigid and frozen, just far enough away that she could not provide comfort.

"Not everything. Enough. Nothing like my whole life returning. I didn't actually put it together until...I tricked Leger into telling me who it was. I just knew, all of a sudden, that there was someone. She didn't mean to tell me."

"Well, I'm sorry for my part in it. He made me promise."

"Mione, were we happy? It feels like we were happy."

"Yes. But...well, do you remember everything else?"

"The memory thing. Ya. Ironic. What an ass, making me feel this way, when he knew what it felt like."

"He felt like it was the only way. He...he said he was trying to give you your life."

"Well."

"Yes. Trying to give you your life, by all but taking your life from you It was selfless, if stupid. Harry, I am so sorry I helped, I thought I had no other choice. It could almost be a romantic tragedy, if it weren't completely moronic. Destroying his support system like that, when he is so helpless and-"

"Hermione, where is he?"

"I truly don't know, Harry. I have some guesses, but I have a feeling _you_ might actually know."

Harry shifted over and put his arm around Hermione, buried his head in her familiar hair, closed his eyes and sighed.

"Yes. I think I do."

-OoOooOoOooOoO-

Draco woke up shivering uncontrollably. Again. It had been three weeks since Klashley's breakthrough, and he could feel every day, every hour of that time. He didn't react well to the 'autonomic shock' that Klashley had promised would be easy, but it did work to push him into an episode. Which of course meant that, over the past three weeks, he had lost many, many moments. His body was fighting back, and he had what felt like a perpetual, unending flu.

Yet, each morning, he wrapped himself in his cloak and scarf and went back to the office, waiting miserably for the next shot of adrenaline.

The problem didn't seem to be the Pensieve idea. That actually appeared to be working. Or at least, it helped with the anxiety he normally felt during an episode, and the next day, he recalled larger pieces of the time he had lost. Instead, as he had predicted, the counter curse Klashley was attempting to use didn't seem to be helping. According to the good doctor, he would snap back to himself right away if the counter curse worked, the moment Klashley managed to remove all traces of the original curse. And that had not happened yet. Instead, he would wake up in his small _Oda_ having no memory of getting back there, no memory of how he had spent the rest of his day after leaving Klashley's office.

It was getting quite exhausting.

He walked into the now familiar corridor and nodded at the secretary who sat at the small desk.

"Good. You are early. I was up all night. I think I have it sorted out perfectly this time. It was the _Reditum_ component. I've changed it."

Klashley was really starting to worry Draco. It was clear he wasn't sleeping, and the crazy light that was in his eyes was becoming a little disturbing. He had been trying for days to bring up the possibility that this strategy, like all the ones before, was not working. It seemed, however, that today was not the day either, so he walked over to the couch, lay down, and extended his arm. He barely flinched as the injection and it's cooling sensation permeated his skin, as he felt the cold grip of chemically induced fear, as the fuzziness extended to his eyes, as he dropped away from himself.

"Where am I? What the…is there a needle in my arm?"

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy. I am Dr. Klashley. You have been wounded. I am assisting you, but I need you to stay calm, please. I am going to request that you come here to this Pensieve. I am going to use an incantation while you watch the memories within."

"Wounded? By whom? What is this place…where am I exactly? Sorry, Dr. Klashley, did you say? If you could please just tell me where Harry is, I am sure there is a perfectly rational reason why-"

"I'm sorry, who? Did you just ask where Harry was?"

"Yes. Harry, my husband. There has been some sort of mix up, I am perfectly fine. If you could find him for me, I'm sure we can figure out-"

"Ahaha! Oh, my dear boy! I wish all of you were here, so that you would understand why this was so momentus! I can't, of course, because I have just baffled you and now you are looking at me as though I have seven heads, and of course, why wouldn't you, you wake up in Turkey and all of the sudden you-"

"I'm sorry, Turkey?! Did you say I was in Turkey?"

"Yes, sorry, forgot. Please, Mr. Malfoy, if you would just allow me to finish the spells, I think we have stumbled upon a solution here. Please, the Pensieve."

Draco looked down at the bowl on the desk, the large ornamental instrument swirling with fog, and though it seemed inadvisable, something compelled him to go over, and sit down.

Harry stood outside the market street, where stairs on the outside of an old building would supposedly lead him to Klashley's office, to Draco. He wasn't sure what to do next. He was standing here, feeling rather ridiculous. There was no precedent for returning; after all, Draco had left him. He really should just go home.

He remembered all but everything. Ever since the realization in Healer Iger's office two days earlier, the dreams had made sense, and with them, the flood of his life came back. He understood the kitchen, that Draco organized the cutlery according to place settings. That Draco had bought the art that he loved, without Harry there, which had led to their first fight as a married couple. That Draco hated rolled parchment. He knew all the bits and pieces that you discovered about someone once you really knew them, the ones that had been ripped away. He was sure there were still parts he was missing, but he didn't really care about that right now, if he was honest. All he cared about was knowing what, exactly, Draco was letting Klashley do to him. Since he had now corrected his earlier mistake, and had looked the doctor up, he knew that he was questionable at best, with a specialization in memory removal, with some evidence that he may have been an Unspeakable back in the day. He was sure that Draco had called upon him to orchestrate whatever had happened to his own memory, but more importantly, he knew Draco will have let Klashley experiment on him in return.

Finally, he just called upon his only remaining bravery, took the stairs two at a time, and burst through the first door. Seeing immediately a closed door at the end of an empty waiting room, he strode towards where he was certain Draco was.

A secretary , who had been sitting quietly, leapt up, "Sir, you can't-"

"Can. Am. Sorry," Harry spat over his shoulder, and whipped open the door.

What he saw baffled him. An old man with wild hair, disheveled clothes, and a wand drawn stood over Draco, who appeared to be immersed in an ancient looking Pensieve. Seeing him, the old man held up a finger and continued to mutter what was clearly an incantation;

" _Meminerimus supersumus._

_Poena fuerunt._

_Revertar ad te qui sis Sanctus Dei."_

Finally, he stopped muttering, though Draco's head did not emerge from the Pensieve.

"Mr. Potter, I presume. Or is it Mr. Malfoy?"

"No, it isn't. Kindly explain to me what is happening here?"

"I am treating Draco, trying to reverse the Tabula Rasa. In fact, I believe we may be making progress."

"Everyone always thinks they're making progress."

"Did anyone else manage to have him remember you in the middle of an episode. Yes. I thought not. May I ask why you are here?"

"You may. I am not going to tell you, however."

"Are you not curious? About why you remember? By now, you know who I am, you have studied my past, you know what I am capable of; therefore, if you are not questioning why it is that you suddenly remembered your marriage and your life, and where to find both those things to bring them home, you are not the man I thought you were."

"I...fine. Why?"

"Because, I do not destroy what is not freely given, or what is not damaged beyond repair."

"But how? Surely I shouldn't remember, not based on the potion traces."

"Traces, being the key word. Memory, Mr. Potter, is a fickle thing. It is difficult to remove emotions. Have you ever wandered past a shop or a market, and smelt something that made you remember, very clearly, something you had long ago forgotten? Or become angry for very little reason? Emotions form memories of their own. It is hard to remove them. Especially if one does not damage the subconscious."

"The dreams."

"Yes, dear boy. I left you your dreams. From there, it was all your own doing, simply a matter of seeing what was there in front of your soul."

"Is he…should I go?"

"I have...induced an episode. If you come back tomorrow, I can speak to him. It might be a bit unhelpful right now, what with him being- ahem- gone."

"Did you say he remembers me? In an episode?"

"Was asking me to find his husband."

"Merlin."

"Yes. If I am right, this time, he will remember everything. When he comes back."

"Klashley. I'm already here."

Both men turned alarmingly fast to turn and look at Draco, whose head had snapped out of the Pensieve, and was now staring straight at Harry. Face full of years of pain and laughter, fully aware, fully Draco.

"You are back! On your own! MERLIN in AZKABAN, but that must mean-"

"Yes, Dr. I think that new counter curse worked."

"Harry, he was only out for 45 minutes. He came back, after an episode where he remembered you. I think…well, its complicated, but I think I may have just removed the curse that was placed on Draco."

"Fascinating. Please leave."

"Ah. Yes. Fair enough," Klashley backed out of his own office, leaving the two men in deadlocked silence, staring straight at one another. For an obscene amount of time, neither spoke. Draco broke first, and looked away.

"Harry-"

"You _erased_ me," Harry's voice was barely more than a whisper, and it hurt a significant amount more than any of their screaming matches ever had. His voice broke just slightly as he continued, "How could you….we promised, right from the beginning, warts and all. Past and all. And you _erased_ me."

"I...was trying to save you. Protect you. "

"You don't get to _MAKE_ that decision, Draco!"

"I know, and I'm sorry. Truly, I am, but I know that what I did…we can't come back from that. It's fine. You can stop worrying about me now, really, you can. I think that crazy man out there may have actually figured something out, and-"

"I have spent the entire month feeling like I was going insane. My friends pretended they had no idea what was going on, and Ron, Merlin Ron; do you even realize how much that is going to suck? Do you remember how long it took to get him to trust you? Now we are back at square one. It's going to be horrible. But through it all, your plan has backfired Draco Malfoy, because now, I just realize what you've been going through every time. I know how you feel. You just gave me empathy so that next time, I-"

"Harry, don't be stupid, there won't be a next time, I'm not coming back. You don't have to forgive me, you can move on now. Find someone less broken, less-"

"Draco," Harry stopped him mid-sentence again, and sighed. He walked over and sat down on the sofa that Draco now hated. "D, do you remember what I said to you? When I proposed? Because I do; I know now, or again, or whatever, that I asked you to stay with me, not the other way around. I dreamed about it. It's how I ended up remembering. Well, that and Healer Iger, but the point is, Klashley left me my dreams. You didn't account for that, or for the fact that, no matter what, those words I said that day are still true. Do you remember them?"

"Harry, of course I do, it's why I wear my-"

"Yes. The ring. The stupid, sentimental ring, the one I was convinced was a bad idea. But the words. They are what matters."

Draco finally looked at Harry, finally saw him for the first time in almost two months, and it hurt. Harry looked haunted and dishevelled, like he hadn't slept in decades. He was sure that the pain and weariness and fear that were etched on Harry's face were mirrored on his own, and his heart broke all over again; it was, as usual, all his fault. Harry refused to look away, and once again, Draco broke the gaze, feeling every bit the coward that he had always been. But Harry kept talking.

"I said, 'I am choosing you. If you stay, I will stay. And in return, I can promise that I will love you. I will love you enough for the both of us. I will love you-"

"Even when you forget," Draco finished so quietly that the last sound he heard was the ticking of Klashley's clock. The last sound before his waist was encircled by _right_ , before his body collided with _comfort_ , before his mouth collided with _mine._

"I'm not going anywhere, you silly old bugger. Just as I have always said. It's going to take a lot more than a memory potion to scrub you from my brain. Although, if you ever, ever try something like that again, I will be forced to kill you."

"Understood," Draco muttered as he pulled Harry back to him once more.

"Now come on. No more Turkey. We are going home."

-OoOooOoOooOoO-

This time, the gap between the episodes lasted an entire year. From the time they left Klashley's office, Draco stayed present and aware of his life for an entire year. And it was a _bad_ year. There was a lot of pressure, lots of triggers possible. Stress, and anger, and pain.

There was the fact that Harry stayed angry at Hermione and Ginny, and truthfully, at Draco, for months. He tried incredibly hard to hide it, but it was pointless. Draco knew him too well. He knew exactly how long, to the minute, he paid for the memory SNAFU. He knew the second Harry had decided to forgive him, to move on.

Six months, three days, four minutes later, Harry asked for something. Until that moment, he hadn't asked Draco for anything, at all; that was how Potter anger operated. He showed you how pissed off he was by not counting on you for anything, not even small or simple things, not even handing you a towel. He proved to you that he did not need you by retreating within himself, and becoming self-sufficient. It hurt, quite a bit, once you noticed it happening. The noticing had taken him a while because he was from a house where anger either simmered in icy silence or appeared in wall-shaking shouting. Once he had noticed this, though, the Harry Anger, he started watching. He began to understand it. He prided himself on being very, very good at reading people.

Which meant that, six months, three days, and four minutes later, he froze. He froze when Harry walked in the door, soaking wet and obviously grumpy, and said, "Draco, can you make me a cuppa? I'm freezing. Stupid English winter. I can't get warm after a day in the field. I think I may be too old for this crap."

He froze and he stared, and he met Harry's eyes as he stared back at Draco defiantly, saying without saying, yes, I've forgiven you, I'm not angry anymore, let's move on.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I mean...I can make it myself, but your tea is always better."

"Kettle's already on. Figured you'd be cold."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. HP?"

"Ya, me too."

Draco didn't know how long the reprieve would last. There was no way to tell if the _Tabula Rasa_ was actually gone, but right now, he decided it didn't matter. Right now, he didn't care if tomorrow, he disappeared and forgot this moment. Right now, he only needed four things.

Mug.

Tea.

Milk.

Harry.

* * *

You can put a stick in my spokes  
I can be the butt of your jokes  
I can be the laughing stock, I can be the hoax  
They can come and tear my house down  
They can run me out of town  
They can tie me up, call me a clown

But I ain't gonna lose you

\- Brett Dennen


	4. A Continuation

 

He rolled down and snuggled further into the blankets, making a very unmanly happy noise as he did. Saturday was the only day of the week where Harry managed to actually rest, and this was the first Saturday this month where he had not had to work until 3 am. There were many factors that made Saturday the best; the knowledge that he had no cases to deal with, no need to run off and finish the paperwork he had abandoned in desperate exhaustion the night before. The reality that he was usually at least slightly hungover from their night out the day before. It all meant that he was able to sleep soundly well into the morning.

Draco let him sleep, and that in and of itself was a bit of a miracle. Draco was loud in the morning; he crashed around the kitchen preparing for his day, angry that he was awake and apparently willing to make anyone and everyone pay for it. But on Saturdays, he got up silently, went out to the coffee shop round the corner for breakfast, and stayed out until 10 or 11, leaving Harry to stretch out the length of their bed and doze for a couple extra hours.

It was early summer, the first week when the streets had started smelling like lilacs. Draco had opened the bedroom window, and the smell was wafting in on a gentle, cool breeze. It was clearly a lovely day, and Harry was just starting to edge from blissful happiness to guilty laziness as he luxuriated in bed. He rolled over onto his side and removed the pillow from his face, where he had placed it to block out the light. In doing so, however, he suddenly realized that the house wasn't silent, as it normally was. Draco was home. More importantly, there was a sad, sort of wistful sound, coming from below the bedroom.

Harry sat up very suddenly in bed, nearly smacking his head on the headboard in the process. He waited for the slight dizziness from rushing between lying down and sitting up to subside, then he swung himself out of bed and into some sweatpants. He hurtled himself downstairs, and stood outside the closed door to the study, listening. Definitely Draco. Definitely music. He cracked the door open slowly, and poked just his head inside. Unexpectedly, the music didn't stop when Draco saw him.

"Morning," Draco said quietly. "Get enough of a lie-in? Didn't wake you, did I?"

"You're playing your cello again."

Which had been exactly the wrong thing to say, apparently. Draco's face went from the slight wispy smile he'd been wearing to the hard line of challenge that was Harry's least favourite facial expression.

"Yes," he said simply.

"It's just...it's been a while?"

"Yes," he said. "Years, in fact."

"It's...are you writing again too? I didn't recognise the piece."

"Was thinking about it, but that was just an old line I never finished."

"It sounded nice."

"Rubbish. It sounds rubbish. I'm rusty and out of tune, and I can't get the rhythm of the bowing right. But it's a start."

"It sounds nice," Harry asserted firmly. "Tea?"

"Please."

Harry walked out of the study and held his breath for the entire short walk to the kitchen, only exhaling when, thank Merlin, the music began again.

Harry had been surprised to learn that Draco played the cello. All those years back, when they had first started dating, the person he was just starting to actually know had been hard to quantify with dedication to an instrument. But play Draco did; he was actually really good. Harry supposed rigorous summer tutors, and endless hours of practice were sure to guarantee some proficiency, but it wasn't really just that he was technically capable. He was that too, but when Draco played...it was just _more._ There was a life he managed to give the instrument, and emotion poured out of his pieces, whether they were his own or not. Harry had been incapable of keeping his hands off him the night Draco had played his own pieces in front of him for the first time; it was too beautiful, full of light and mystery.

Harry had desperately missed the sound, but somewhere in their bad years, year two or three perhaps, the cello had disappeared from his life, and he was too afraid to set Draco off to ask why. He was sure the answer had to do with the memory thing, and he just didn't want to bring it up. He'd found it once in the hall closet, behind coats they never wore. He'd been sorely tempted to bring it out and just leave it in the study. He hadn't, of course, but the desire had been great. He had been trying, at the time, to drag their lives back into normal.

Now, though? It had now been two years and three months since Klashley. They had not had an episode since, and when Draco was examined carefully by Healer Leger, she pronounced it "unlikely" that they would see another one. The spell damage seemed to have mostly disappeared, and the areas where Draco still got confused were getting fewer and fewer. Somehow, despite this incredibly amazing news, their lives had stayed resolutely the same. They had not changed anything in their house, their routines had not changed an iota. The binder was even floating around a bottom drawer somewhere, still full of notes from Harry and memories of their relationship. Harry had meant to take them out and put them up somehow. He wasn't crafty or anything, but he figured he could do something better than a binder in a dank drawer.

He felt the corners of his mouth turn up as he listened to the cello sounds become bolder, louder; he decided he was going to take this as a sign.

Armed with tea, he wandered back into the study. This time, Draco didn't stop, his bow arm moving languidly as he resonated the minor notes he was running through. His fingers had to be killing him. He really hadn't played in years. Harry sat the tea down on the end table near Draco's left arm, and moved to stand behind the stool he had pulled from the closet, wrapping his arms around him from behind and nuzzling his neck as his arm moved with the bow when Draco did not stop playing.

"You know you aren't exactly making this any easier."

"I know," Harry muffled, his lips still on Draco's neck. Despite the protest, Draco had turned his head to the side to allow full access, and Harry suspected he didn't really mind. "Your fingers bleeding yet?"

"Very nearly. If my dad only knew how much I'd let my practice slide."

"Well, you have my full permission to play at any hour of the day. I think even the walls missed this sound."

"Oh, for the last frigging time, enough with your whimsy," Draco said, no venom to his voice and a daft smile pasted on his lips. "The house does not have any emotions."

"Don't worry, house, he doesn't mean that. He talks to you when I'm not around, I know he does."

Draco chuckled, and finally shook Harry off so he could move the Cello off his shoulder. He rested it on the ground, took hold of his tea, and went over to the lounge through the concertina doors. Harry followed lazily, grabbing the paper as he went, and settling in at the foot of the sofa Draco was now draped over, passing him the crossword. It was the picture of their old, perfectly boring life, and Harry tried to just leave well enough alone. For a solid fifteen minutes, he left Draco to his crossword, idly reading the paper and trying _not_ to stick his foot in it and start an argument. He absolutely _would not_ ask the question. He was resolute.

His foot started to jiggle. His thumb tapped his leg nervously.

Finally, Draco sighed and put the paper on his chest, "You might as well just ask. You've distracted me anyway."

Harry hesitated a moment before meeting Draco's eyes.

"Any special reason you started playing again?"

Draco shrugged. He had known the question was coming, but that didn't mean he was going to answer it. He, infuriatingly, picked up the paper again and chewed on the cap of the biro he favoured when he was working upside down.

Harry didn't push. It was as much as he was going to get, and he knew it. He wasn't sure, however, if he could afford to push his luck. His mind was already focused on his next question, but he had to be subtle, or he'd just end up in shit anyway.

He waited what he felt was a decorous amount of time before nonchalantly muttering, "Does this mean you're, erm, ready to go back to work?"

His decorousness and nonchalant tone were all for nought. Draco sighed an exasperated sigh and put the paper back down.

"I _already_ work, Harry."

"I know, I just meant-"

"I _love_ my work, Harry."

"I know, and at the time, it was perfect that you worked part-time at the book shop, since you could, you know, take time off quite easily when-"

"When I routinely and regularly completely forgot who I was? Yes. It was rather convenient. And Madame Rosaline has been wonderful to me for the past decade. You would have me abandon her, just as she nears retirement?"

"Draco, I wasn't suggesting-"

"No, you were just suggesting that my work wasn't important because I don't have a _title._ "

"No, I wasn't, Draco. You know that's not what I'm like. You just…it's just that you were _so_ close to finishing your training."

"Yes, but, if you'll recall, a 'bad day' ruined that particular dream when I missed one too many days of practical. Please, can we just not."

"Okay, fine. I didn't mean anything by it. It's fine, I just...oh whatever. Keep playing, okay?" Harry sighed. He really hadn't meant to end up annoying Draco. He looked up and frowned. Although the words Draco had been using had seemed to suggest annoyance, his face was surprisingly serene. Unusual, to say the least, and Harry was slightly unnerved. He paused and hesitantly carried on.

"I just meant….well, I just wish that there had been a way to finish the program, since you'd have made an excellent healer."

"Is there a reason we are suddenly speaking as though we are both dead? If I recall, you don't like it when I do that. There's time for everything, especially now. We're happy. I'm happy…aren't you still happy?"

Harry threw out a frustrated chortle, "Of course, Draco. Never mind. Ignore me. I'm just having a nostalgic, fuzzy-old-man moment."

At this, Draco sat up. He turned around a put his head in Harry's lap quite suddenly, staring up at him and wrapping a hand around Harry's neck, forcing him down into an awkward kiss and smiling. This had been the only real change Harry had noticed. Far more physical affection initiated by Draco. He'd never really been the physical display type, but now, it's like he was making up for lost time. Not that Harry was complaining, especially in moments like this where a languorous kiss ended up more intense than he remembered there ever being before, and this was just in the lounge. Releasing him, Draco took Harry's hand, lacing their fingers together and resting them on his chest, running his thumb over the back of it slowly.

"Incidentally," he whispered, not quite meeting Harry's eye. "It's good to know that you would support me going back. It'll make it a whole lot easier if I get into the completion program I applied to at St. Mungo's."

Harry hit Draco with both their hands, "What?! You ass. You've already applied! Without telling me?! And then, you just let me keeping digging myself a hole."

"Naturally. Don't think I'll get it, but-"

"Shut up, course you will. There's no reason you shouldn't."

"Except the aforementioned decade I've been out of school, the fact that I am ancient to be a first year trainee, and the reality that I am _still_ Malfoy."

"A decade you have spent constantly volunteering at the hospital, reading all the medical journals imaginable, and atoning the Malfoy name until it meant something worth respecting again. Who'd you use as reference?"

"Two references. Leger…and Hermione."

"See. You'll get it," Harry insisted, dropping his head back onto the sofa back. "So. The cello."

"Shut up about the _cello_ Harry. It's just a cello. It doesn't have to mean anything."

"It does, though, doesn't it?"

Draco curled further into Harry's lap and looked away.

"Maybe," he whispered eventually. "But I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay."

"Is it?"

"Yup. Love you. If you don't get it, which you will, will you keep working at the shop?"

"Nope. I'm bored."

"Thought you might end up there eventually."

"Harry.…"

"Hm?"

"Do you really think I'll get it?"

"Still an insecure bastard, aren't you."

"Always."

"Good."

-OooOooOooOooOOOooOooOooO-

Six months later, as Draco worked the seventh double shift he had worked in a fortnight, and Harry tossed and turned, trying and failing to fall asleep with half the bed empty, he would look back wistfully at that conversation. Still, Draco was disgustingly happy. Through his exhaustion and frustration, through the endless studying and copious amounts of caffeine, his body buzzed with purpose and joy. He _loved_ working at the hospital. He had become who he was actually supposed to be, who he would have been if the curse had never happened, and he was even more beautiful for it.

They grew together beautifully, too. Harry had been worried at first. What was going to happen if Draco fulfilled his dreams? Was he going to become distant, change too much for them to make it work? But he needn't have worried. Instead, Draco was just fully who he had already been, with the added benefit of being too tired most nights to fuss and hover, even when Harry came home from work with cuts and bruises. He would heal them quickly, skipping the lecture, and then make Harry feel less weary in many _other_ ways. It had been an unexpected, but more than welcome, bonus.

Still, he was going to have to get used to falling asleep alone. Not as easy as he had thought it was going to be, after a decade of usually being the one to get home ridiculously late and crawl into an already warm bed, containing the perfect amount of person. Even on days when Harry was miserable after shift, brain too full, exhausted but mind racing, Draco seemed to sense it; he'd roll over, hug Harry tight, whisper 'Hush. Rest well.', and then curl over and go back to sleep. Bizarrely, it had always been enough. And so, now he was having a hard time getting over the empty bed thing. He'd have to work on that.

 _Though, apparently not tonight_ , he thought, smiling as he heard the shower turn on in the next room, Draco clearly having Apparated straight into the washroom again. Harry shuddered. That usually meant his work robes were epically disgusting. He waited, still smiling, hands beneath his head.

"Harry," Draco sighed as he crawled into bed, smelling of soap and heat, boxers and hair both slightly damp. He wrapped his arms and legs around Harry tightly, forcing his head into the space between his clavicle and his ear, murmuring, "Bad shift, tell you 'bout it tomorrow. Love you. Night."

Harry wrapped his hands around the cold, largely naked blond, whose entire body hummed in approval at having his punishingly close embrace returned.

He whispered, "You too, grumpy grump. Rest well."

And as he fell almost instantly asleep, an odd, dark cello melody plodded comfortably along inside his skull, resonating his happiness perfectly.


End file.
